Missing Pieces
by dance-tilyou'redead
Summary: Quinn imagined her life as one of predestined solitude; of clawing darkness and grief. When Rachel Hudson arrives in Clothier, New Mexico in the spring of 1880 she changes everything. Their political, social and judicial belief sparks a true friendship but it's their deeper friendship and love that will save both their lives.


Quinn can't watch them. Seeing the way Santana and her soldier smile, the way they cling to one another just reminds her of everything she doesn't have. Quinn thought she had it once. She thought maybe Noah loved her and that she could love him back too if she tried hard enough. She did try. Their child may have brought them together. But Shelby wouldn't even allow him to know of it. Not when Quinn had already decided to give her little girl away.

No, she never did love Noah and never really could. She thought maybe she was broken or cursed. She imagined her life as one of predestined solitude; a dark life full of dark shadows always clawing her skin and eating at her flesh until there would be nothing left. A small comfort was her friendship with Santana. She seemed like a kindred spirit, equally lost to the clawing darkness.

Then The Company came. Quinn lost her friend to a sweet, simple boy and his purple wildflowers. Of course Quinn's own reprieve came the very next day. Rachel shone with her own light. The enthusiasm and confidence of a woman who knew she was worth something. She illuminated Quinn's darkness, made her believe there might be another way. Quinn wanted to believe, to feel, to take what Rachel offered. Unconditional friendship started to feel like an equal thing to Quinn's imagined story book love. Quinn felt so much and all at once that she wondered for the first time if things really were so dark without that kind of love. She _thought_ she'd found her answer until she realised the truth.

She found that she can feel that story book love after all. She knows exactly what beautiful agony it can bring when unrequited. She knows her feelings won't be returned. She found a companion of pain in Santana once again. Or at least she thought she had. Their queer feelings for other women, unnatural at their core can't be met with equal affection. How can either one of them be so fortunate as to find another like themselves with the same feeling. Somehow though, Santana _has_ her soldier. Any doubt left to that certainty, Quinn left behind in the tent with the two lovers. Quinn's dearest friend(or worst enemy as the day may have it) has the affections of the woman she...

Quinn stalks through the camp, ignoring the artless gazes and callous calls of the soldiers surrounding her. She's used to falling under the scrutiny and lustful, wanting eyes of men; she trades in it. She's never felt more sick from it.

She wants Rachel to look at her that way. She wants it so much it burns. But she can't have it. _Mrs_ Rachel Hudson can't and shouldn't look at her that way. Which is why Quinn pushed Rachel away, why she cut her out of her life in so dramatic and permanent a way. The only thing worse than wanting Rachel in that way is knowing that she can never have her.

If she were to see Rachel now...

"Quinn?"

Quinn's heart almost stops at the sound of her greatest temptation. Rachel's voice could be in her mind but for the goosebumps they draw to her skin.

Rachel's voice calls again, more sure this time. "Quinn, what are you doing here?"

Quinn closes her eyes as if denying herself of sight will make Rachel disappear. It doesn't work though. Of course not. Rachel comes close enough for Quinn to feel the heat of her. Any proper personal boundaries were lost in those first few days of their acquaintance. Reading the pamphlets and literature of the New York suffragettes long into the night skewed their relationship. Pouring over illicit histories together, their shoulders touching, hands brushing—these are the memories that haunt Quinn, that taunt her now with Rachel's sudden nearness. Quinn lets her heart and blood run cold. She imagines that she is a still, cold lake; she's impervious to hurt.

Rachel takes her hand and Quinn can't help but open her eyes. A soldier rushes past them in a blur of blue and Rachel looks around them nervously but doesn't release Quinn's hand. Instead she pulls her sideways into the dim light of the largest tent in the row.

Quinn can see enough in the shadows to know that this is Rachel's tent, her home with her husband. Of course Quinn would stumble her way here. Rachel moves efficiently through the space to a narrow desk on one side. The only source of illumination is an oil lamp, so close to losing it's fight to remain alight. Rachel twirls the mechanism controlling the flame until a sharp white brilliance flares. The hissing whir of the kerosene and cotton burning chases the light before both ease.

"Quinn?" Rachel says her name again but Quinn remains unmoving.

She imagines a lake, frozen in winter.

"Will you just talk to me? Quinn!" Quinn flinches as Rachel's voice becomes loud and insistent.

"I told you I can't—" Quinn swallows, desperately trying to keep her voice even as her heart rate accelerates. Rachel is back in her personal space. Warm, earnest eyes are burning into her. "You need to be in your life Rachel and I need to stay in mine."

Rachel's expression hardens and she rolls her eyes. "Don't feed me that different worlds rubish again Quinn Fabray. I know you whether you like it or not and I know that's not what you believe any more."

Quinn's ire rises at the easy contradiction. "You presume an awful lot Rachel _Hudson_. You can't presume to know—"

"I can and you know—"

"No I don't know!" Quinn shouts, crossing into Rachel's space because she's angry at her self and terrified that she really does know nothing.

Quinn doesn't know what to do, what to think or say. She's yelling, hoping to stop Rachel from looking at her with so much care and compassion. Quinn is only burned by Rachel's friendship.

Rachel flinches and Quinn feels the first crack in her resolve. She fights, as always; she fights like hell against Rachel's persistent warmth.

"You don't know what?" Rachel asks. She reads Quinn so easily it's terrifying.

"I don't know how to be around you." Quinn's voice is soft, she hopes soft enough to cover the tremor.

"But that's the point of being dearest friends."

Quinn's heart clenches as always at the word 'friend'.

"I admire you so much," Rachel continues. You don't have to _be_ anything. You can be yourself." Rachel lifts up a shoulder like it must be so easy. "We can be what _we_ want to be." She runs a hand down Quinn's arm in an overly familiar gesture that they've shared before. "I'm going to hug you now."

Quinn doesn't move. She can't do anything as Rachel does exactly what she says and closes the short distance between them. Quinn, though taller than Rachel feels immediately surrounded by her close heat. She misses this so much. She wraps her arms around Rachel's shoulders.

"You don't have to be afraid." Rachel leans further into her, arms wrapped tightly around Quinn's waist.

Quinn says nothing. She just feels. She feels Rachel's hands pressing into the small of her back. She feels Rachel's hair tickling softly against her jaw. She feels the heat of Rachel's cheek against the bare skin of her shoulder. She both curses and delights in the cut of her dress which allows the contact.

"We can _be_, Quinn." Rachel turns her head a little as she speaks. "We can," is the promise she whispers against her skin.

Quinn shudders at the gentle pressure. It's so much more than they've experienced together and more than she could have prepared for. She can't bring herself to let go though. She closes her eyes. "Please," Quinn sighs with no understanding of what she's pleading for.

Rachel chooses for them both, pressing her lips surely and deliberately into the flesh below Quinn's collar bone.

Quinn can't move. She thinks she might have stopped breathing. She might be dreaming or this might be nightmare since surely a dream like this one could only haunt her in her waking hours. It isn't a dream though. She's sure of it when she feels those soft lips pressed against her again. She flinches away, pushing Rachel firmly from her.

"Don't," Quinn whispers, imagining a frozen pool. Still, impenetrable and unfeeling.

"Quinn, please just—"

Quinn spins toward the entrance to the tent, knowing that her expression will only reveal her every feeling to Rachel. "No I can't do this again with you Rachel. I don't care about you or what you think we had." Quinn is relieved when her voice is not only steady but almost wholly void of emotion.

Rachel pursues Quinn into the glaring morning sun. "Please Quinn, nothing has to end if you would just stop being so stubborn and explain to me what's wrong," Rachel places a gentling hand against Quinn's arm. her voice is imploring, pleading. "I care for you so much. Why won't you see that nothing else matters?"

Quinn swallows hard against the tears she can feel building. The ice shatters. The hurt breaks through. She wonders what Rachel would say in her husband's hearing. Would she care? Quinn turns back, throwing Rachel's hand off her arm.

"Quinn, there you are," Santana's voice seems to come from nowhere. Breaking through the air like a whip's crack.

"Santana?" Quinn asks confused. Her friend has shattered the illusion of isolation Quinn knows she'd shared with Rachel in the shadows of her tent.

"Quinn, please." Rachel tries again, stepping forward to grasp Quinn's hand.

Quinn pulls away, unable to bear her touch any longer. She turns her back on Rachel. "Just… Leave me be. Please…" She trails off—she still doesn't know anything.

Santana steps forward but Quinn keeps out of her reach. "Let's go Santana."

Santana trips a little in her haste to follow. "What was all that about?"

"Nothing, just… leave it be," Quinn grits out. She needs to be still and calm again.

"But did you go looking for her? You said you wouldn't—"

"Just forget it Santana," Quinn cuts her off, her tone sharper than she intends.

Santana doesn't add anything else, just falls into step with her. Quinn guides them away from the white city, wanting to get as much distance between herself and Rachel as she can.

If only she could get as much distance from her own feelings. For as much as Rachel's friendship burns her from without, Quinn's love for Rachel is what consumes her from within.

It's all she ever feels any more.

* * *

**AN:** The Best Trick reference: the bottom of chapter 18 and top of 19


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